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Page 275
impossible for her to obey the king's order, but he could not escape it all. She turned to him to grasp his hand with a pretty display of feminine appeal.
"He cannot break our marriage, can he, Ian? He could not part us now?"
Ian could have murdered her in that moment, not for what she said but for the way she was lying with her voice and her body, playing on the sympathies of the witnesses to make them believe she was a weak and frightened woman. There were a few faces, he knew, that had set like stone. Those men knew Alinor for what she wasWilliam of Pembroke, Sir Giles of Iford, perhaps even Robert of Leicesterbut none of those men would betray her. What was worse, she had maneuvered him so that he was forced to draw others into a tangle he had made himself with open eyes and felt was his to struggle with alone. Nonetheless, she had been too clever for him. If he did not fall willingly into the trap Alinor had set, he could destroy them both.
"I am no churchman," he replied stiffly, "but I am sure marriage is an affair of the Church and not of the king."
"Is this true, my lords?" Alinor cried to the three bishops.
Before Ian could guess what she would do, she had released his hand and run down from the dais. Ian could feel the color rise into his face. He thought he had been clever enough, answering without requiring confirmation from anyone. Now he saw he had played exactly as she expected, into her hands. All three bishops were assuring her aloud that what God had joined no man, save God's vicar on earth, the Pope, could part asunder.
"And there must be a real reason, must there not? Such as consanguinity or some other holy cause of wrong for the Pope to annul a marriage? It cannot be just for a political purpose?"
Peter des Roches of Winchester looked into the eyes

 
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